Details of NME’s 60th birthday celebrations revealed

Launched in 1952 when the Accordion Times was merged with the Musical Express, the very first issue of our magazine was published on this day 60 years ago.

Since then, we’ve continued to bring our readers the finest that new music has to offer by championing the latest exciting artists of every genre, from The Beatles to Blur, Sex Pistols to The Smiths, Public Enemy to Pete Doherty and beyond.

And while the magazine continues to sit at the forefront of music, instigating debate and bringing you the latest on everyone from The Horrors to Lana Del Rey to Odd Future, we’ve branched out into other platforms, too. NME.COM, which was first launched in 1996, celebrated its 15th birthday last year, while NME Radio first hit the airwaves in 2008.

We’ll be celebrating our anniversary in a number of ways throughout the rest of the year. Firstly, we’ll be launching our search for the Ultimate NME Icon, a fan-driven poll to find our greatest hero of the last 60 years, as well as introducing our new weekly feature Behind NME Lines, in which our writers and photographers divulge their most unforgettable moments while working at NME. There’ll also be our hunt to determine The Greatest Tracks Of NME’s Lifetime, in which a panel of NME experts and musicians select the greatest songs of each decade.

We’ve also extended our Facebook timeline all the way back to 1952 to celebrate our 60th birthday – click here to take a trip through music history.